


your mother

by asiren (meliorismo)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: Family Dynamics, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Han Solo's A+ Parenting, Leia's A+ Parenting, Minor spoilers to TLJ, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 06:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13405701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliorismo/pseuds/asiren
Summary: once upon a time, kylo ren had a family.





	your mother

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much to verena, who revised this in record time. also thank you to nico, who talked to me about all this stuff the other night. i know i promised another thing entirely, but i just couldn't take this whole mother-son dynamics out of my head. 
> 
> well, enjoy the family feels, mother-son & father-son & uncle-nephew relationship, the character study of general nuisance kylo ren that no one ever asked for.

The birds cawed around Ren, knowing that he was their master, worried that he was going to leave forever. They were probably right in their apprehension, since he never felt so lonely. He felt like drowning in every single one of his own poor decisions — he could call them by name.

The sounds were very mute there, in the remains of that ruined planet. If he wanted, he could pretend that nothing had ever happened. He could wish it away.

“How long are we staying here?”, Hux’s voice was loud, and very insubordinate. Ren didn’t notice him coming, which was a joke all by itself; the sound of Hux’s anger made the birds fly for cover. “There’s no one left. They must have been in that ship we _saw_ leaving, but you were to busy—”

Ren rose his eyes to look at Hux, wondering if killing his own General would be too much trouble. He ended up realizing that he didn’t know the first thing about ruling an empire, so the situation must remain the way it was until further notice. “Forget it.”

“You should at least say you have a plan.”

“Of course I have a plan.”

“Not a Force-related plan.” Hux added, looking and sounding very unimpressed.

“I have!”, Ren yelled at him. Unfortunately, General Hux just sighed in defeat, and then left.

Finally, Ren was the only one there, testimony of his mother’s triumph once again. The place was a burned wreck, every single ship in that hellhole was at least fifty years old, the door didn’t resist more than two blows. Even so, she was alive, and he — well. He. At least he could comfort himself that he wasn’t the only one losing that day.

He felt it when his uncle died. A sadness in the Force. So, in a way, their fight did kill Luke. Indirectly. Since that was true, Ren wasn’t so much a failure as Hux thought he was.

(Kind of).

Sometimes, in days like that one, Ren would ask himself if he was doing the right thing. At least, when he flew from the monastery, he knew what he was doing. It could not be the Light, and it was, indeed, the Dark, but it felt as if he was making the good decision. For him, if not for the rest of the galaxy. For him, if not for his mother, his father, his uncle.

Snoke was dead. Luke was also dead. Han too. And Anakin, well; he was already cold on his tomb. Every single person who made him who he was, everyone but his mother. Leia Organa was alive, and it looked like it was going to keep being true for a long time.

He sighed, looking around and trying to spot some bird. They flew away in panic when they heard Hux, which made them wiser than Ren himself. Hux couldn’t be trusted; every single thing about him screamed motinuos intention. Even so, Ren didn’t have a choice. It was a really recurrent theme on his life — the battle wasn’t between the Light and the Dark.

It was really between Bad and Worse.

He stared one last time at the red and white landscape of his latest big defeat. Hux was pissed off that he could ruin this one so badly, when they had the rebels about to be crushed, and all that he had to do was stand out of the way. His feelings fucked things up, as usual. What could he say to defend himself? It was impossible.

The ruined door mocked him. For hours, behind that piece of metal standed his mother. Leia was there, he could feel it; serene, waiting for things to play out. Ren hated that about her. He always felt disconnected of his family — they couldn’t understand that everything about him was flammable.

“Sir.” a stormtrooper said from behind a tree. He was projecting terror and urge to flee, which Ren could really empathize with; after all, he would give almost anything to be far away from that stupid place. “General Hux sent me to ask— If you will be on his ship, sir. Because we are leaving. Apparently.” he added the last part as an afterthought. How do you address the new Supreme Leader? The last one was so above his station, he couldn’t worry about such a thing.

Ren glanced at him, annoyed. “You can leave now.”

The stormtrooper nodded three times and then left. He went away wishing that he didn’t got such a difficult task; now it was him who would have to tell the General that the Supreme Leader was being difficult. Would the General go away without him? Would he dare such a thing?

Ren watched him flee, a little amused. Hux would leave without him, that was for sure. He couldn’t resist the impulse of being contrary. Even if that was dangerous for his life — Ren was, indeed, an unstable Force-user —, he had to make clear that he was _not happy_ with the current situation. Ren decided, then, to not make things worse. He was already too humiliated with the whole fiasco. How bothersome would it be to be stuck on that sad, lonely planet?

He glanced behind his shoulder, one glass fox standing close to the door; it looked somehow disapproving around the edges. It also looked a lot like his mother when she was judging all of his life choices — he was a teenager at the time, and he still doesn’t know how she found so many things to be angry about. He was an adult already, and he thought she should have saved her strength to be furious about any of the many shitty things he did since he was seventeen.

He passed by Hux while entering the ship, and everything about his Force presence was screaming revolt. Ren couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

(It’s comforting how some things never change).

**&**

“Where’s my mom?”, Ben asked his father, who was pacing around the living room. That was the first time ever that Ben, 5-years-old, was living outside of a ship. The house was ok, and the weather wasn’t terrible. In all honesty, he loved the place. Whenever he went to the window and rose the curtains, he could see a forest. It was big like the space, but more engaging. Ben could go outside and touch the leaves, which he couldn’t do with the planets he saw moving outside of the spaceship. “Dad? Where’s mom?”

“She’s working.” Han told him, a little harsh around the edges. “Leia is working.”

“When will she come back?” Ben wanted to know. He was worried that it would be one of those times that his mother left to go to a meeting and only returned six months later.

“I don’t know. She is busy, Ben.”

“She is always busy. When will she come back?”

Han sighed, exhausted with the situation as a whole. He loved his son, and he loved his wife, but sometimes he just wished that he had never met Leia at all.

He kneeled and hold Ben against his chest, looking for all the world like he was almost crying himself. Ben hated when his dad cried. It always felt like the end of the world; his uncle Luke cried a lot for a bunch of things, and so did Leia, but Han was made of tougher stuff (or, well. So Ben thought at the time). “Your mom is going to take a while, son.”

“What? _Why?_ ”

“She’s busy.”

“She’s always busy! She said that she would be here to take me to school this time!” Ben yelled, almost knocking his dad off on his urge to run away. Han watched Ben disappear around the stair, and then he heard the noise of the door being closed with all the force a 5-year-old can master. He knew it would go this way. He told Leia that Ben was angry at her, but she wouldn’t listen; she was worried that a planet or another was going to revolt. Han finally realised that the war wouldn’t ever end — not to his wife, not to his best friend, maybe not even for himself or Ben. He started fighting and couldn’t keep up anymore.

Han sighed, thinking about what to do. He could always run, of course; he was pretty good at that. But he also liked to think he didn’t suck so much as a father, and it would certainly change if he left his son alone to go get drunk. He wished to drink at least until he forgot what he was mad about and maybe keep going until death.

The picture on the wall — the one with him, Leia and Luke, young and smiling, was like a terrible, unfriendly ghost. He took it down and then went to look for his son, who were probably drawing something very angry, very questionable on the blue paper that Han had given to him.

He missed Leia. He missed her very much.

**& **

“Mom!”, Ben went running, almost kicking her door. She looked at him, trying to guess what he had done that he wanted her to see. (It wasn’t like that anymore. Ben was already 12. But she missed so much of him, of who he was, who he would be; he just couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he wasn’t a baby). “Uncle Luke said he is going to visit us in the summer!”

“Oh?” Leia finally put down the reports that she was reading. “Are you sure? Thought he said that wouldn’t be able to come here this time. Because of the school he is trying to put together…”

“No, he said to dad that he is _definitely_ coming this summer. I guess he got tired of all that rocks.” Ben answered her, helpfully.

“Must be true.” Leia nodded. “Yes, must be true. When in the summer, do you know?”

“I don’t think he said the date. But we can ask dad, since he was the one who talked to uncle Luke to begin with.”

Leia leaned her face against her hand, trying to think. She missed her brother, of course, all the time. But he wasn’t only _hers_. He was Han’s best friend in the whole world; he loved her and Luke the same amount. She was worried that he called him for moral support. She was worried that he wanted the divorce. “Well, I guess we should go remove the dust of your uncle’s bedroom.”

“Mom? Aren’t you feeling well?”, her son asked, concerned. She thought to herself, then, _Damn. Get your shit together. He’s your child._

“It’s the heat, angel. I’m a little out of breath.”

“I can dust the bedroom for you! Don’t worry, mom, just get a little rest!”, he nodded at her, one, two, three times, and then left the room, already off on some new mission to make her happy. She looked at the retreating figure of Ben, 12, already raised inside a war she wished never happened, and felt so badly she almost died on the spot. She thought about _her_ mother, who died before she could be terrible at this job.

Leia really thought that Padmé got the better end of the deal.

**&**

Ben has an uncle. His name is Luke (Skywalker) and he’s just as important as his twin sister Leia, if a little less accessible. He’s very busy, but he always spends at least two months/year with Leia, Han and Ben. Luke always said that you have to value your family, because you don’t know for how long you’re going to have them. It was a little morbid, and Leia hated it when he talked like that, but Ben was in awe with his uncle’s honesty.

He didn’t know anything about losing family. He also didn’t know anything about the world outside his carefully calculated comfort bubble (he was only eight, too young to face the galaxy by anyone’s standards). He knew that what Luke was saying had to be the true, though: Leia always cried. Ben asked himself over the years, _why dad just let mom cry that way? why he doesn’t help her? he isn’t crying with mom and uncle. why is he just standing there?_

Well, as was already stated, Ben was just a kid, and a very privileged one. Every single person on his reach was a war hero. Every planet they stopped, people wanted to hold him, hug him, kiss him. Leia was the hope of the universe, and her lovely baby was so adorable, everyone was on their best behavior.

It was hard to miss how Han didn’t quite fit in their discourse. Ben remembered, since he was small, how his dad always looked uncomfortable with something or another; he used to get angry, too, while his wife was out there in fancy meetings, and he couldn’t just fly away.

Ben wanted to ask him, _do you resent me? Do you wish I were away? With her, or with anyone, really?_

He never did, though. He was afraid of the answer.

“Hey, kid.” Luke sat at the stairs with his nephew, trying to come up with something to say. How do you lie to a child who isn’t really a child anymore? “How are things going?”

“Mom told me we’ll go back to live on a ship.” Ben answered him, trying to be very neutral. “Dad said it isn’t decided yet, though.”

“You want to stay living on a planet?”

Ben paused. “I don’t want to live on a ship anymore.”

“You don’t like them?”

“I like them fine, uncle.” Ben told him, condescending. “It’s just boring to be there twenty four hours, seven days a week.”

“You know your mom is trying her best, right? Your dad is, too.”

“I know.” Ben breathed, trying to keep the words to himself. In the end, he really couldn’t. “They sucked at it, though.”

**&**

Anakin had a lot of regrets.

Well, obviously. He was dead, his wife was dead, his children didn’t know him for this big part of their lives, and when they met him  they hated him, and now his grandson was going crazy in this shitty path that Anakin himself already went to the end. Ben Solo was steady in the direction of a life wasted as someone else’s pawn, too blind by his own self-importance to see what is right in front of him.

Anakin could relate, really.

He watched, then, while that vulture went inside Ben’s head, talking to him, lying to him, being terrible all around. And Anakin tried to do something about it, he really tried. Unfortunately, people who kind of died as Sith aren’t as well loved by the Force as someone could imagine, and he couldn’t talk to his daughter. He thought, maybe, that he would have more success with Luke, who forgave Anakin while said Anakin died, and was more strong in the Force.

Didn’t work.

There was this one time, when Ben was sixteen, that Anakin was close — so close — of warning him. Of convincing him to tell everything to Leia, who was so great, she would fix it; she would fix everything, wasn’t this her job? If Ben couldn’t trust her as a mother, he should at least trust her as a general.

He went there, full-on Force ghost, and stopped by the side of Ben’s bed. Anakin could feel the presence of Snoke around the place, since Snoke was a Sith (and a bad one, which was worse), and Anakin had been one for most of his life. He wished he weren’t dead. Things hadn’t gone all to shit yet, but they surely would. The next day or the next year.

Anakin tried to poke Ben — he wasn’t strong enough, though. He tried to talk, but his voice was low. He tried to drop something, but Luke believed in spartan Jedi-to-be rooms, and there wasn’t anything he could drop to make some noise. Not even a small pot with pens.

He stayed there during the whole night, getting thinner by the minute, until he finally went away with the wind, his warnings and his voice too weak to carry.

**&**

Ben was sick.

He isn’t young enough to demand his parents presence around him at all times, which is just lucky because none of them are on the planet at the moment. It’s just him, the nanny droid and the other, meaner one.

He’s trying not make a big deal out of it. The screaming match he had with his mom about her eternal absence was still very fresh on his memory. She had cried, and it made him feel terrible, but it also was like _you cry all the time! can’t you keep it together this once?,_ which was just mean, and he was glad he didn’t say it, even if his mom could probably tell, looking at his face or reading it on the Force. But he didn’t _say it_ , so it must be worth something. You can’t control what you think, it wasn’t his fault; so, with a family full of Force-users, you have to rely more on the actions.

Ben called his dad, though. He wouldn’t bother his mom, obviously (he wasn’t too young anymore that he didn’t realize what _Princess_ and _General_ really meant), but he was feeling so _terrible_ , and he was tired of the face of that nanny droid. So, he called, and Chewie answered.

[The conversation went like this:

“Chewie! Is my dad there?”

“You’re looking a little yellow. Is it normal for you to look yellow?”

“Oh, it’s okay, I’m just a little sick. That’s why I want dad back. You can have him later! I swear!”

“Han is on the planet looking for something. I don’t really know what. I will tell him that you called, and that he should go back to check on you.”

“Thanks, Chewie, you’re the best.”

“You too, kid.”

“May the Force be with you!”

“You too, kid.”]

And that was it.

Ben ended up feeling a little better two weeks after the call, thanks to the nanny droid. Han didn’t show up, and neither did Leia. He tried to not let it get to him; his parents were busy people. They had important jobs. It wasn’t nothing serious, and he said it to Chewie; maybe Han agreed and didn’t think necessary leave whatever he was doing — surely important — to check on something so minor.

(Him. He was the one minor).

Ben tried to let it go. He really did.

He couldn’t, though.

**&**

Leia stopped right there, at the door of her son’s bedroom, looking at him breathe. She used to do it all the time when he was a baby and closer to her; the habit followed until he was five and they went to live on a planet for the first time. The reality of what was demanded of her showed its ugly face for the first time then — she left and then she just kept leaving over and over and over again. An absent mom, almost not a mom at all.

She loved him so much. Her little miracle. People on the council said that her son was a boost of morale to the galaxy. The idea that hope was still obviously alive, breathing, because Princess Leia (sorry, General now) had a baby, and he was _adorable._ She didn’t care about that, though. She didn’t had a son to use him as political pawn.

Ben was her miracle. She looked at him and could barely breathe.

_I’m your mom_ , she wanted to say to him, _I’m your mom, your mom, your mom. You’re mine. I love you,_ she would sob, _I love you and I want so much to be with you, I just don’t know how to stop fighting, to stop leading, to stop leaving. I’m your mom, I’m your mom, I’m your mom and you’re mine. My son. Mine. I love you, please believe me. I love you, please let me come back, you’re everything to me, I’m your mom, your mom, your mom._

She couldn’t say it, though. It wouldn’t be fair. She had missed the time, missed the clue, the moment when he would have accept her back.

It was too late now.

**&**

One day, Ben went away. On his hurried path he left a few things behind, and Leia kept all of them. They were: a notebook half wrote, two pens (one purple, the other blue), a few pictures, three drawings (4 years-old, 6 years-old, 10 years-old, all of them hanged on the fridge’s door), a blanket (used to be hers), seven shirts, one pant, four shoes, the ghost of the people he killed and also his mother’s broken heart.

**&**

Before the bridge, the last time Kylo Ren saw his father was when he had visited his son at Luke’s school, looking suspicious of the whole thing. Ren was 17, and he was, to all intents and purposes, already Kylo Ren. He was upset about meeting Han, worried that he would see right through his lies and call Luke, or even Leia. Or maybe, which would have been worse, try to have a very disappointed heart-to-heart with Ren. He was sure he couldn’t take it.

At the time, it was already almost two years since Han’d walked away from Leia and, by proximity, from Ren. They had been communicating mostly with third-parties, usually Luke and Chewie. It was difficult for Ben (he was Ben at the beginning), because he didn’t know what he should feel. His mother was very, very sad, and he never saw his father, so who knows what he was feeling? Also, Ben himself was pissed off.

He touched his parents and found them both lacking.

Han and Leia weren’t very good at parenting, really, none of them. So, for a long while, the decision that Ben had to make was who sucked less, and who he liked more.

(It was a surprisingly impossible choice).

Han stood there, awkwardly trying to approach the situation at hand. Luke was terrible and didn’t allowed any of the children to have much furniture on their rooms, so there wasn’t a single chair on the whole space. He nodded, then, and sat at the end of his son’s bed. Ben — Ren — was at the other extremity, looking unimpressed and as if he was regretting that meeting already. Han thought, _Fair._ It’s what you got when you walk away from your child.

“Ben.” Han started, “How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Are things interesting here? You always complained about your old schools.”

“I don’t know.” Ren frowned. “It’s still boring, but a different kind of boring. Uncle Luke also yells a lot.”

“Sounds like Luke.”

“I thought he was, like, this zen monk. I was so wrong.”

Han smiled, looking a little relieved, and Ren thought, _Damn. Fucking constant need of approval._ “Are you going home to your mom this Christmas?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe.” Ren lied, grateful for his totally incapable of using the Force of a dad.

“I’m sure she wants you back.”

“Of course.” Ren answered, bitterly. “She is dying to see me again between her meeting at 5 and her meeting at 6.”

“Ben—”

“No, forget it.” he smiled. “I don’t mean it at all.”

Han stared at him, trying to work out what to say. He couldn’t defend Leia’s absence; he was a terrible parent himself. He ended up not saying anything, afraid to break that fragile peace he had with his son, and left the planet a little after that.

Two days later, Ben was gone, and that was it.

**&**

Leia stared at the planet she was leaving behind, the red desolation of the battle her son had lead. The white was ugly, looking like a tomb; from the window of their small ship, she couldn’t make the people anymore, but she could feel in the Force his presence — this angry, sad, desperate ghost who stared at him and blamed her. He never said anything, of course; he was lying during the last years she had with him, and then he never did more than mention her name (or, if he did, wasn’t where anyone who knew her could hear). But she knew. A mother always knows when her child hates her.

She sighed, touching the glass with the tip of her fingers. _I’m your mother,_ she thought. _I’m your mother and I love you. I love you, please come back. I’m your mother, and I’ll be until the end of the world. I’m your mother until the day I die._

( _Please,_ she thought. _I’ll always love you, so come back._

_I’m your mother,_ she sobbed, and Poe looked up at her, _I’m your mother, I’m your mother, I’m your mother_ —)

**Author's Note:**

> 1st: i love leia organa with everything i have in me; thats why i couldn't bring myself to lie. she was busy, and probably living with ptsd, so if we think she would have such a good mother, then we are deeply wrong. but i do think she tried, and that was what i tried to show here.  
> 2nd: han tried. he sucked, but he tried.  
> 3rd: luke: same.


End file.
